e infinite universe.

CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS

They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice
the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They
had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extended
much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was an
orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that
he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a
colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on
bad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had also hinted at being
a baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not
know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius. On her side, she
had confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus
convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's name
was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great deal
to the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himself
everything though he denied her nothing.

Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he
had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recent
past, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette told
him satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell her
about the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thenardier, about the
burn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father.
Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did not
even know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he had
breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears which
rendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hours
when he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite natural
that he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burden
of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called
lovers.

Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there
come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go on
afterwards?

Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent
forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will.
There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than there
is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism.